The Agency Group partners with Gersh

Alliance for clients' mutual interests

Tenpercentery the Gersh Agency and music agency the Agency Group (TAG) have announced an alliance, hoping to better place the latter’s musical clients for film, TV and legit work, with TAG also assisting with live booking for Gersh’s comedy clients.

Agency’s first major collaborative move will see the Kinks’ Ray Davies develop a Broadway musical based on his songbook, while Gersh client Bobcat Goldthwait will adapt and direct a film based on the Kinks’ 1976 concept album, “Schoolboys in Disgrace.”

TAG presently handles tour booking duties for a roster of over 1,000 artists.

“Working with our friends at Gersh has enabled us to bring opportunities to these artists that we couldn’t bring before,” said TAG CEO Neil Warnock. “And rather than being thrown at everyone as a possible service, (these opportunities) are being brought in as a very focused service for the artist.”

Gersh senior partner and senior executive vice president Rick Greenstein hoped the non-binding nature of the alliance will result in a higher degree of client attention.

“If an artist has multiple aspirations in different arenas,” he said, “very often the agency they’re talking to is really only interested in the area in which they’re most lucrative. If it’s a music artist with acting aspirations, then very often the acting department is obliged to take the meeting and help their associates out, but it’s really not why they’re signing the client.

“With us, there’s no obligatory scenario. Both TAG and Gersh have no obligation to have to sign that other respective act. We will only pull the trigger and work together on the act if we think the area we’re being asked to look into is a business unto itself.”